Success and the System: Brave Female CEOs Wanted for Systemic Change Gig

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer and Evolved Employer

Apparently, Marissa Mayer, the new pregnant female CEO of Yahoo, dislikes feminism and taking maternity leave. Should we feel betrayed by her attitudes? Or should we rejoice that a woman gets a coveted spot as a CEO of a Fortune 500 company?

I believe that everyone, including Marissa Mayer, is entitled to her opinion around feminism (however much I personally disagree with her) and around her own boundaries for returning from maternity leave as much as the next person. Nitpicking about her choices would be a distraction from the real issue: why systemic bias in most workplace cultures results in protectionist behaviors from female executives that make them look more like their fathers than their daughters.

However, what Marissa Mayer may not fully realize is that with great power of being a CEO comes great responsibility.

All leaders need to be conscious that their actions and words heavily influence company culture. Behaviors shape the system and the system dictates workplace culture, often invisible to the naked eye, but can be simply defined as “how we do things around here.” The workplace culture in which you operate dictates whether you are running with a weight around your ankle on a potholed road or running on the latest Olympic track with the wind at your back.

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Forté Aims to Increase Number of Women Directors with New ‘Board Ready’ List

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iStock_000007749988XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

At last month’s Forté MBA Women’s Conference, the Forté Foundation announced an initiative to increase the number of women on corporate boards in the US. By working with its partner schools, as well as Intrabond Capital, Watermark, and Women on Boards 2020, the organization will develop a list of hundreds of board-ready professional women.

After all, despite a plethora of qualified women ready to take board seats, companies still seem to need help locating them. According to Catalyst, women only held about 16% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies last year. Perhaps a list of women ready to take on director positions will encourage companies to think twice about whom they hire for top roles and why.

Elissa Ellis Sangster, Executive Director of the Forté Foundation explained that each of the organization’s member schools will be asked to participate. “We’re asking the schools specifically to identify five women. And at least some will identify more than that.”

It will take some time to develop, Sangster explained, noting that the women identified will have to give their permission to be included on the list as well, and the schools will provide a representative who can work with executive search firms and other groups looking for women board candidates. “We’re really trying to be a conduit,” she explained.

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Powerful Women on Paying It Forward

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woman pointing upBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Wednesday marked the Council of Urban Professionals’ fourth annual Women’s Leadership Forum, “Women & Wealth: Ambition, Risk, Success,” held at Morgan Stanley‘s New York City headquarters. CUP Executive Director Chloe Drew opened the event with a message of what the event would celebrate: “Women as drivers of revenue, leaders of finance, builders of teams.”

She continued, “But another theme has emerged. Women as circles of trust and reciprocity.”

“All of the women we’re honoring today really represent such creativity, such ingenuity, but also those circles of trust and reciprocity,” Drew said.

CUP honored several women with awards, each committed to making a difference for women in their respective fields and serving as an example for female leadership.

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Women of Vision Share Successes – and Failures – with Tech’s Up-and-Comers

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iStock_000014933658XSmallBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

“By the end of the speeches, you’re going to feel like you haven’t done anything in your career!” This was a statement overheard several times in passing from attendees earlier this month at the seventh annual Women of Vision Awards Banquet in Santa Clara, California, held by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI). The sentiment referred to the continuously high caliber of award winners who have the distinction of receiving an ABI award for leadership, innovation, or social impact.

Yet by the time the speeches were through, the packed ballroom of 800 attendees— which included more than 100 students with attendance sponsored by tech companies and local universities—was clearly inspired, not discouraged. This was due not only to the impressive video bios that recounted the winning women’s achievements, but to the “anti-bios” that each winner bravely shared, directing their advice in particular to the younger women in the audience.

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Celebrating Female Role Models in Technology

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week, Bloomberg hosted the NCWIT Aspirations Award ceremony – a special event to honor young women in high school who have excelled in the area of computing. Keynote speaker Jacqui Meyer, R&D Chief of Staff at Bloomberg, explained how she found her way into the technology field as she was finishing college. Intending to go into sports marketing after graduating, she interviewed with the company just to keep her options open. During the interview, she was asked about her experience writing software – and she didn’t have any. But, she said, she could learn whatever they wanted to teach her.

That was in 1993 – and 19 years later, she’s still with the Bloomberg. “Why?” she asked. “I love the challenge.”

She explained that the challenge of writing software to solve financial problems has become a passion for her. But it wasn’t something she even considered while in school. “I don’t think anyone was trying to hold me back because I was female,” she recalled. “I just didn’t know it was available to me.”

Meyer urged the award winners to keep drawing young women into the industry. “You all respect, understand, and value the way technology could be used to unlock doors,” she said. “You also have a responsibility to be an ambassador for women in technology, paving the way for those who will follow you.”

Similarly, Ruthe Farmer, Director of Strategic Initiatives for NCWIT, encouraged the winners to understand how valuable they are for the future workforce, pointing out that the US will only have 29% of the workers it will need for technology jobs by 2018. “A company like Bloomberg wouldn’t put out all of this time and energy if you weren’t really important to them, and you are really important to a lot of companies,” she said.

She added, “Let people know what you’re available to do and what you’re capable of.”

In that light, this week The Glass Hammer is highlighting high ranking women who have achieved success in the technology field. They reveal the wide-ranging possibilities for a career in the industry, and, hopefully, serve as a role model for women climbing the career ladder, as well as their peers.

Check back all week long to read profiles of women in IT careers, describing how they got to where they are today and their advice for the next generation of women in technology.

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Leadership Bias Revealed Again

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iStock_000010363335XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

According to new research, IPO firms with male CEOs get the advantage with investors, compared to those with female CEOs. This news probably comes as no surprise, but the nuances revealed by the study point to a conclusion that should be concerning to anyone who works in a field characterized by the term “meritocracy.”

When it comes to matters of gender, there’s no such thing as fair play. For women at least, outcomes are rarely based purely on performance. More and more research is showing that gender weighs heavily on the equation when it comes to your job, your promotion, your paycheck, and – in the case of this new study – how much investors are willing to pour into a business.

A working paper recently released by researchers from the University of Utah and Washington University in St. Louis suggests that female led IPO firms do worse than male ones. The study says, “Despite identical personal qualifications and firm financials, female Founder/CEOs were perceived as less capable than their male counterparts, and IPOs led by female Founder/CEOs were considered less attractive investments.”

Moreover, the researchers say, even though prospective investors were presented with identical information on performance, experience, and qualifications, “Female CEOs were seen as less experienced, less able to lead, less able to resolve TMT disputes and board deadlocks, as well as a less favorable representative of the company in the eyes of the public.”

Women continue to be perceived as less capable leaders than men, simply because they are women.

While many companies purport to be meritocratic in the way they reward top producers, studies like these show that we’ve got to wonder what kinds of gender biases play into sponsorship and promotion within companies, as well as investments into IPO firms.

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Are Women Better Leaders?

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Attractive Asian Business Woman Stands MeetingBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

When you think of a high performing female leader you admire, what traits does she display? Is she innovative? Collaborative? Inspiring? Analytic? Dynamic? Now think about a male leader you admire. How does he approach leadership? What traits does he display?

It shouldn’t surprise you if you tick off a number of similar qualities.

After all, good leaders exhibit many of the same traits, regardless of gender. And while we anticipate that women will perhaps rank higher when it comes to measures of collaboration, developing others, building relationships, and communication, we anticipate that men will perform better when it comes to traits like taking initiative, driving for results, establishing stretch goals, and problem solving.

But, according to new research by Zenger Folkman, it’s time to reexamine those stereotypes. In fact, based on 360 degree evaluations of over 7,000 leaders, not only did women score higher than men on an index of overall leadership effectiveness traits (53 compared to 49), but women ranked higher in twelve out of 16 leadership competencies – including all of the traits listed above.

In fact, the widest gap between men and women leaders was “taking the initiative,” where women scored 11 points higher than men. Why are women performing so much more effectively than male leaders? And why is the gap so wide?

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New Initiative to Increase Diversity on Director Candidate Slates

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iStock_000009056376XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Earlier this week, almost three hundred women board directors gathered at the second annual WomenCorporateDirectors Global Institute to discuss issues that corporations are facing in an increasingly global and complex marketplace.

Last year, the organization, composed of over 1,400 women in 42 chapters around the world, put forth a call to action to increase board diversity. In order to do so, this year, the group announced its newest project: the WCD Global Nominating Commission, a task force of CEOS and nominating committee chairs from top corporate boards, which will focus on increasing diversity on candidate slates for directorships.

Henrietta H. Fore, global co-chair of WCD, CEO and chairman of Holsman International, and a director at ExxonMobil and Theravance, Inc, said, “With the Commission, we are taking on the next challenge – urging nominating committees, who determine the composition of the board, to focus on global diversity.”

She added, “We will work with these important decision-makers in a whole new way.”

Alison A. Winter, global co-chair and co-founder of WCD and a director at Nordstrom, added, “With greater demand on boards and from boards to increase diversity, the Global Nominating Commission will be an important center of influence for nominating committees worldwide.”

Increasing diversity on candidate slates has been touted as a way to build more diverse boards, without resorting to quota rules that have been adopted in countries in Europe and Asia. Board diversity has been shown time and time again to drive better decision-making and has been correlated with increased corporate revenues.

Based on the challenges that corporations will face in the coming years, diversity can only improve boards’ ability to tackle the tangled web of global opportunities that lie ahead.

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Standing Out Online: The New Realities of Job Search for Executive Women

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iStock_000014187113XSmallBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Technology, social media, and the recession have drastically changed the face of job seeking—it’s much harder today to stand out from the noise. Talent hunters now have access to literally hundreds of millions of online resumes in an instant through job boards, search engines, and networking sites. Yet the online environment can serve as an “equalizer” as well, helping to create a more level playing field for executive women during the job search process—provided they know the right strategies to use.

How can you cut through the clamor and gain the attention of potential employers, recruiters, and hiring managers in today’s ultra-competitive online and social media environment? Who better to ask than Mike Junge, who currently serves on the leadership recruiting team at Google and has helped hundreds of job seekers land offers with Fortune 500 companies around the globe.

Junge is also author of the recently released book, Purple Squirrel: Stand Out, Land Interviews, and Master the Modern Job Market and a former five-time Recruiter of the Year with a national staffing firm. As such, he has the inside word on what it really takes for female execs to get hired in an environment where it’s no longer about searching for jobs—it’s about being searched for.

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Women, Risk, and Banking

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iStock_000014186302XSmallBy Liz O’Donnell, Founder of HelloLadies.com

The day before the Simmons Leadership Conference in Boston last week, Mary Ellen Iskenderian, president and CEO of Women’s World Banking, was fired up. Iskenderian was reflecting on a story in the Financial Times that ran with the headline, “Women bankers linked to rise in risk-taking.“ The article, based on research from the German Deutsche Bundesbak, reported that according to a study of German banks, boards with higher proportion of female executives “lead to a more risky conduct of business.”

Iskenderian knows risk. Women’s World Banking (WWB) is a network of 39 financial organizations from 27 countries that provide credit and loans to low-income women worldwide to fulfill their dreams by starting their own businesses. In addition to providing microfinancing, WBB works to empower and educate women to build financial safety nets for themselves and their families. That can be pretty risky business in some parts of the world.

The report on which Iskenderian was focused, actually looked at three variables on boards: gender, experience, and education. “Level of experience is what influences performance,” said Iskenderian expressing dissatisfaction in how the media had framed the report.

“I don’t think the genie is going back in the bottle,” she said addressing the idea that homogenous boards make better decisions and that women disrupt the “cozy” board environment. She cited a University of Michigan study that shows heterogeneous groups produce better outcomes. “You can’t take this (Bundesbak) study in isolation,” she said, also citing the mandate in Norway to fill 40 percent of board seats at publicly traded company with women. “The Norway mandate had teeth,” she said, and women received training to bridge any experience gaps. “There is a roadmap drawn for us. Train more women to serve on boards and it can be a very virtuous circle.”

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